Seating Positions

[gontek]

IS it 'recumbent' seating what you call the pilot position in the cozy/longEZ?

Suppose you had unlimited technology for control systems and instrument display on a canard configuration similar to a LongEZ or Cozy in size. I am just trying to imagine what it would feel like to be seated in a prone position. In any aircraft really, but similar to a hand glider or the Wright flyer.

 

I have found only a few aircraft with seating this way, need to go to Library to up Janes. I saw a report that more G's can be withstood this way. I'm trying to think about how a pilot might fly and navigate comfortably in that position.

 

There are pros and cons to every option so think it over yourself and feel free to suggest some pros and cons of different seating positions. If you ever have ideas thought out in terms of safety, field of view, blind spots, ergonomics, control options and instrumentation, please discuss.

 

I'll start:

Con: it's different

 

Pros:

You'd feel like a shark flying it.

potential field of view

fuselage shape

canopy size and parasite

 

problems:

getting in and out easily

wearing a helmet?

crash safety/ejection?

proven harnesses & structures?

proven intuitive pilot control inputs?

 

I can't do Oskosh this year. Have too many places to go, people to see, things to do, more I would like to do - but it will finance the fun in the future. Oh and I will be in LA this weekend for vacation. Flying Southwest.

[gontek]

Oh and I will be seated in the upright and maybe slightly reclined positions.

[Drew Swenson]

The Cozy, Longez, Berkut, and F-16 are all in the reclined position. The body can take more G's in this position due to the heart to head distance being reduced-----but in my opinion, the biggest effect of the reclined position is the reduction in frontal area of the aircraft which leads to better efficiency.

[Waiter]

problems:

getting in and out easily

wearing a helmet?

crash safety/ejection?

proven harnesses & structures?

proven intuitive pilot control inputs?

None of these are problems, just different techniques required.

 

Waiter

[Wayne Hicks]

Prone position? I suggest you do the following. Lay on your belly in front of your telly. Watch the telly for 4 hours without moving. Once you've completed this test, come back to us and tell us how sore and stiff your neck got. This test doesn't even begin to address other ergonomic issues, like reaching for items in the plane and navigating with charts and stuff.

[Waiter]

Prone position? I suggest you do the following. Lay on your belly in front of your telly. Watch the telly for 4 hours without moving.

Wayne - OR, you could qualify as a Boom Operator on a KC135 Air-Refueling Tanker. Their motto - "lay on your stomach and pass gas" :D

[airnico]

prone position, it's interesting: it would be like to ride a motorbike......

I feel like I have more sensitivity to the bike's behaviour sitting prone than to the car's behaviour sitting reclined.

prone sitting gives you also more stability(assuming your legs have something to hold), but I'm skeptical about neck confort: I actually ride my bike for many hours with no neck problems, and we should consider the elmet's weight and wind force.

when riding on race tracks you also get some g force and I had never neck problems.

I wonder if it would be a good solution, but looking at formula1(cars) that is the highest expression of performance and g force on the ground(in europe) I see that they sit reclined and I cannot think they did not consider a different solution: they have tons of engineers and money to spend to research!

but I think the reason for this position could be merely a habit: we have always sit that way since cars exist.....

do you have some links to see those aircraft with prone sitting you talked about?

[gontek]

Don't have any good links or info, mostly junk. Need to go look up more in Janes.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Brothers

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hang_gliding

 

http://www.airpages.ru/cgi-bin/epg.pl?nav=ru11&page=346

 

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/cosford/collections/aircraft/gloster-meteor-f8-prone-position.cfm

 

http://www.luft46.com/prototyp/berlin9.html

 

http://en.scientificcommons.org/18705929

[argoldman]

prone position, it's interesting: it would be like to ride a motorbike......

I feel like I have more sensitivity to the bike's behaviour sitting prone than to the car's behaviour sitting reclined.

prone sitting gives you also more stability(assuming your legs have something to hold), but I'm skeptical about neck confort: I actually ride my bike for many hours with no neck problems, and we should consider the elmet's weight and wind force.

when riding on race tracks you also get some g force and I had never neck problems.

I wonder if it would be a good solution, but looking at formula1(cars) that is the highest expression of performance and g force on the ground(in europe) I see that they sit reclined and I cannot think they did not consider a different solution: they have tons of engineers and money to spend to research!

but I think the reason for this position could be merely a habit: we have always sit that way since cars exist.....

do you have some links to see those aircraft with prone sitting you talked about?

 

Nothing new about the prone position. Orv and Wil used it in their first. They, in fact were the first aviation hippies (using their hips to control something or other.)

 

We could develop a head holder or a prism system, or now with glass panel a virtual view of whats in front of us so that we wouldn't have to flex our necks.

 

Taking a drink or eating might get a little difficult as might breathing with increasing Gs since the rib cage will be compressed.

 

I guess we could get used to the rudder inputs, and just think of all of the luggage we could pile on top of ourselves. For two place, we could use bunk beds. Getting in and out would be a snap as long as there is a crane nearby. I also kinda like the idea that in a crash my head would be the first part of my anatomy to arrive. The view would be terrific, however.

 

Wasn't the prone position used in the movie Flight of the Phoenix??

[ZUCZZ]

At the risk of sounding curt ... if you don't like the seating arrangement, build something else.

 

I had a lot of opinions and ideas on everything ... now that I'm flying my Cozy, all the questions have gone away.

 

Yes, it could all be different, but not in a Cozy

 

Not having done flights for more than 1:20, i cannot tell you what it would be like longer, but it sure is comportable at the moment.

 

 

So how much have you built yet?

[Waiter]

Not having done flights for more than 1:20, i cannot tell you what it would be like longer, but it sure is comportable at the moment.

My longest flight to date is 12 hours. I typically fly San Jose to Toledo in about 9 hours (non-stop).

 

For comfort, I'll take the LongEZ over any other plane, including a B-737.

 

Waiter

[airnico]

they were so brave to experiment a different seating solution, so why not to try a different aircraft shape?

 

look at the Gloster Meteor F8 Prone Position or at the Berlin B9: with a proned pilot it would be better for visibility reasons and pilot's head position(to look forward) to have the canopy(may be just a window) under the aircraft (forward part), this way you could fly and land it at very high AoA with no visibility problems and you should not keep your head up.

[Spodman]

And there is this one:

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Henschel_Hs_132_wiki.jpg

 

All of these things are tactical aircraft where the horrible comfort factor is balanced off against increased resistance to G and the pilot able to see to land - and he can get out after a mission of an hour or so and see if he can still walk. Even then I'd hate to be flying this thing wondering if there was some hotshot in a Mustang behind me...

 

Don't see any advantages for a touring aircraft, other than nobody wanting to go flying with me if I wanted some serenity...

[macleodm3]

An upright position leaned slightly forward might be comfortable enough to be bearable. Leaned slighlty forward, with a surface to lean on in front of you... but this would require a big frontal area. Yeah, laying on your belly isn't real comfortable, its hard to believe we're even discussing this. Heck, we could discuss flying on our backs, with mirrors to see forward. But Why? There's no reason to do so.

 

The pros for prone position in Canard aircraft mostly exist with current configuration... small canopy, fuselage shape, field of view... they are all already existant.

[TMann]

I tried that prone position last night for about 8 hours.

Pretty comfortable.

[Jon Matcho]

Here's my favorite of this type :

 

[argoldman]

The plane around that guy must be made of transparent aluminum.

 

Beam me up Scotty:)

[gontek]

Wonder woman has a plane like that, only she sits fully upright. If I were a superhero I would definitely fly prone. Then again, I'd want to land upright, crash safety would not be any issue, and I wouldn't need any airframe.

 

when you design an aircraft configuration you get a lot of passing thoughts about options like "prone" vs "reclined" and they usually pass by fairly quickly once you consider integration with the driving factors of your design criteria (what you want to achieve). The more I think about position, the more I would like to consider prone seating like on a crotch rocket or a hang glider. This thought is not passing by so easily.

[argoldman]

Wonder woman has a plane like that, only she sits fully upright. If I were a superhero I would definitely fly prone. Then again, I'd want to land upright, crash safety would not be any issue, and I wouldn't need any airframe.

 

when you design an aircraft configuration you get a lot of passing thoughts about options like "prone" vs "reclined" and they usually pass by fairly quickly once you consider integration with the driving factors of your design criteria (what you want to achieve). The more I think about position, the more I would like to consider prone seating like on a crotch rocket or a hang glider. This thought is not passing by so easily.

 

Gon,

 

That's a great idea, except for one thing.

 

As you get a little more mature (spelled OLD), those knees don't exactly bend as they did when you were a young spring chicken.

 

Time spent with knees bent, like this, in the mature knee, can yield extreme pain and dysfunction, not to mention difficulty in using the rudder pedals if you choose to use you feet for this function.

 

CREEEEEEEK (I just stood up)

[Jon Matcho]

This thought is not passing by so easily.

Kinda like a kidney stone or other somesuch bowel related obstruction?

[emteeoh]

The more I think about position, the more I would like to consider prone seating like on a crotch rocket or a hang glider. This thought is not passing by so easily.

A friend of mine once announced that he wanted to get a crotch rocket. His brother (a long time rider) took him to a local bike shop, and just walked around the collection of used bikes for sale, pointing out what he called "ball prints" on the gas tanks.

 

Quite simply, in no way do I *EVER* want to leave ball prints on my airplane.

[gontek]

I enjoy the sense of humor on this forum a lot.

 

Allow me to expand on my thoughts why I like this with a back of the napkin drawing:

 

 

Hopefully I did that right.

 

As you can see, considering only pilot and fuselage shape, the fuselage can be shaped like a wing. If I want a really fast airplane, the benefit is lower fuselage wetted area and canopy parasite drag, and little to no (actually negative) munk effect. I beileve there would also be much added benefit with control over slow flight at high angle of attack - I'd imagine it being similar to maintaining a wheelie on a bike. Of course engineering around all the problems that have been identified is no easy feat. But neither is building an airplane from scratch. Having a fuselage that contributes to lift.. contributes a lot to lift.. it's been done...

[gontek]

not sure if it is common knowledge: Munk effect - this is a measure of the tendency for a fuselage shape to induce a pitching moment. If you condsider a cylinder, it does not have as good of aerodynamic properties flying end to end as it does with the round side forward. This has high munk effect. Consider what happens when you throw an empty paper towel roll longitudinally, or shoot an arrow without fletchings. Or roll up a sheet of paper, put a rubber band around it, and throw it.

 

Sorry for the crappy definition I have a better one in a book somewhere but that is the gist of it.

 

your average Boeing/ Airbus has a lot of munk effect. Sometimes this is a factor in sizing empennage and more munk effect usually results in more drag and less desirable purturbed longitudinal and lateral directional stability characteristics. All Right? I guess it is sometimes referred to as munk moment.